Saturday, December 1, 2012

Buster Squad 5: A Necessary Evil Actual Play Volume 10

With the team laying low and Talos integrating into the
group, the squad witnesses The Junk Yard Dog, an OMEGA member, being executed
during a battle with Fins by an orbital satellite! Dr. Destruction breaks into
their signal and informs them that the V’Sori have put a new weapon into play
above the Earth, and that the team needs to take it out. Fast.

The requisite brain storming session begins, with the team
trying to figure out how to find the satellite and how to get into space. With
some thinking, they realize that space craft should be located at the airport,
but will likely be heavily guarded, and they still don’t know where the
satellite is. Kale and Mindstorm try to telepathically reach out to Dr. Aden,
but fail, so Kale taps into the Omega resources to get word to Aden. Aden
responds pretty quickly with the coordinates for the satellite! Still left
trying to figure out how to get into space, inspiration strikes Kale. He tells
the team to meet him at the airport…and he prays that they forgive him.

Mindstorm, Talos and Socks arrive at the airport, and Kale
telepathically nudged them, saying that he was behind a hangar. When the team
reunited, Kale refused to look them in the eye, saying that he knew they didn’t
really have the right skills or resources to pull this off…so he made a deal
with the devil. The team seemed unsure about how they should take this, when French
thief Cyber-Burglaire said he would assist them! The team groaned, having dealt
with Cyber-Burglaire before (in fact, having been directly responsible for
Burglaire joining OMEGA), and Kale got some glares. Burglaire quickly broke
into the hangar and the team surveyed the hangar, seeing the ship surrounded by
about 25 drones. Mindstorm asked Cyber-Burglaire what he knows about
satellites, which wasn’t much, but he said he could learn via the internet.
Mindstorm asked him if he could reprogram the satellite, and Burglaire said
yes.

The team tried to figure out how to get into the ship
without fighting their way in, and Kale told Socks to sneak in from underneath,
thanks to Mindstorm using Telekinesis to open the ship’s hatch. Kale and
Mindstorm telepathically guided Socks to his destination, and Socks
successfully slipped into the ship. Kale, riding Socks’ mind, saw the inside of
the ship through his eyes and teleported into the vessel, then drew the other
three teammates in as well. Burglaire hacked the hangar’s flight logs and
inserted a scheduled flight for this vessel, and the team burst off into space,
spying a V’Sori Warlord stalking around the hangar!

Kale piloted the vessel while Socks explored it. Before the
team could even get a visual on the satellite, it opened fire on them! The
vessel was sent spinning out of control and Kale only barely righted it before
it came to a dead float in space! Mindstorm yelled at Burglaire for allowing
the ship to be shot, but Burglaire countered that he had no idea the satellite
would even try to fire that early! Talos grimaced and began to magnetically
propel the ship forward..at an alarming speed, bringing the ship close to the
satellite while Cyber-Burglaire hacked the satellite and temporarily disabled
its gun! (Socks had an Adventure Card that boosted the group’s travel time in a
day, making this quite fortuitous. As the team pulled in close to the
satellite, Talos began to institute repairs, but they were going to take a
loooooong time. Burglaire grimaced as the satellite tried to fire again,
blocking the attack from firing. Socks found the ship’s guns and attacked, but
did nothing. Kale rose from his seat in the cockpit and called on Leviathan,
whose reach extended even here, and Kale hurled a mystical bolt through the
ship’s viewport, blasting the satellite and causing explosions! Mindstorm
closed his eyes and focused his Telekinesis, placing a shield in front of the
vessel! (This was accomplished by an Adventure Card that allows a PC to gain 5
Power Points worth of Powers for one session, which Mindstorm used to gain
Deflection.)

The satellite popped off a shot that narrowly missed the
ship thanks to Mindstorm, and Kale ripped into the satellite again, while
Mindstorm joined him by hurling Telekinetic bolts. Socks got ready to fire off
another shot, but Mindstorm told him to take his time with this one.

Cyber-Burglaire locked the satellite down again and Kale
fired off another bolt, this one doing nothing. However, Socks fired again and
this time the well-placed shot set off a chain reaction of explosions that
obliterated the Orca Death Ray satellite!

The downside? The repairs by Talos were going to take more
than three days to fix because the ship was still crippled. Cyber-Burglaire
offered a “Go Team!” but was rejected. Still, the team had won. Counts for
something, right?

Notes: This one is straight from the NE book, and I could
see it royally sucking for some groups, but everyone involved managed to find
some way to contribute, even in the fight from the spaceship. Socks was firing
unskilled from the ship and missing repeatedly, but rolled really well with the
Aim maneuver, and then rolled even better on the damage roll (a damage total in
the 40s, as I recall). Despite 7 Adventure Cards between the two PCs, they were
complaining about how useless their cards were…then managed to use both to
great effect. So great, in fact, that as Mindstorm crossed Heroic, he took
Power Points and the Deflection power.